


A History of Elizabeth Weir's Relationships

by spemhabemus



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Break Up, Character Study, F/M, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1477402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spemhabemus/pseuds/spemhabemus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth isn't able to easily maintain a romantic relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A History of Elizabeth Weir's Relationships

Usually, she went for older men.

Sometimes she thought back to all of her, for the most part, spectacularly failed relationships, realizing she had fled from them all because there had been the possibility of a future.  

Her first boyfriend, Pete, was a senior in high school when she was a sophomore.  He made it abundantly clear that he was planning on having sex with her the night of his graduation.  “My parents won’t even be home, El.”

Elizabeth pulled away from him, unfastening her seatbelt.  “I’m just not ready yet.”

Pete leaned back against the car seat. “Come on.  We’ve been together almost five months.”

They’d been having this conversation at least once a week for the last few months, ever since Elizabeth’s sixteenth birthday, which for Pete had marked her as close enough to an adult to pop her cherry.  When she said no those other times, he had simply shrugged, or scratched his head, but this time he had whined that he didn’t want to go off to college without de-flowering her.  “What are you scared of?” he asked.

Elizabeth raised her eyebrow.  “Getting pregnant.  Getting herpes.  My parents finding out and pressing charges against you.”

“None of that is going to happen,” Pete insisted.  “I just really care about you.  I mean, I get it.  I’m a virgin too.  This will be special for both of us.  I would never hurt you, El.”

She started to open the door and he grabbed her hand.

“Pete,  stop. ”

“Okay, Jesus.”  He ran a hand through his hair.  “Call me tonight.”

She called him, but only to tell him she wasn’t coming over.

 

Three years later, after admitting to her friend Chelsea that she was still a virgin, Chelsea devised a plan to hook her up with a graduate student.  At some house party, Chelsea pressed a drink and a few condoms into Elizabeth’s hand and led her to a sandy-haired guy who easily could have been thirty.  Elizabeth quickly swallowed half the drink.

Five minutes later, he had backed her against a bookcase and started making out with her.  His name was Robert...or something like that.

“I…” Elizabeth gasped when he finally let her come up for air, “I have to go the bathroom.”

She poured the rest of her drink in the bathroom sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror, fingering the condoms in her pocket.

_Oh God Oh God Oh God_ , her mind raced, her heart flopping madly.

She pulled off her pants and then her underpants, and stuck them in her pocket.

She wasn’t sure why.

“I was thinking you had left,” Robert said when she made his way back over to him.

She smiled slyly and crawled her fingers up his shirt.  “Why would I do that?”

He smiled back.  “Let’s go away.”

His apartment smelled strange and his only pieces of furniture were a mattress and a mini fridge.

He splayed her on the mattress and pulled off all her clothes as if she were a paper doll, letting out a moan when he saw she was commando, then climbed out of his own clothes in some strange dance.  She brought her lips to his and he stroked her face, practically sobbing, “You are so fucking beautiful.”

He dived right in, and she tried to relax, but he was going so fast.  He closed his eyes and breathed in pleasurably, and she felt the odd pain searing like a bubble all the way up to her stomach.  She tried not to let the word “No” that was on her tongue slip from her lips, changing it to, “Uhhhhhn” as the pain ebbed and flowed.  After several minutes of flopping under him and trying to remind herself to breathe and how weird it was that someone else was inside her right now, it was over, apparently.

The next morning, as she was getting dressed, she found both condoms still in her pocket, and thought,  _Fuck_ .  Her life was turning into goddamn  _Fast Times at Ridgemont High_ .

He drove her back to her dorm and begged for her number, and when he called and asked her out she said yes, because why not.  He was studying psychology and their conversations were relatively cerebral, but he was just the boyfriend she thought she had to have, nothing more.

To him, she was some kind of goddess.  He blew his stipend on buying her flowers and taking her out to eat. 

Her junior year, she decided to study abroad.  As Robert helped her pack up her dorm room before the summer, he sat down on her bed and said, “When you get back...maybe we should move in together.”

“Huh,” said Elizabeth, folding a sweater into her suitcase.

“I should have a job soon.  A good job,” he mused.  “We could move to a nicer part of town…maybe after you graduate, we could even...you know…”

Elizabeth sat on her floor.  “Are you serious?”

He smiled.  “If you are.”

“I don’t think I could make that commitment when I’m about to move across the world,” she said.

“Only for a year,” Robert reminded her.

“We’ve only been together for a year.  I don’t want to play housewife any time in the near future.”

“But...you still want to be with me, right?”

Elizabeth shrugged.

She never saw him after Europe.

 

She didn’t have time to date while working on her dissertation.  She did have a brief fling with a French diplomat during an internship, but they both knew it was nothing more than a way to relieve stress at the end of the day.  

When she had her Ph.D. and began working as an adjunct professor, she made a conscious decision to focus on her career and be single for awhile.  Even though she hadn’t technically been in a relationship for several years, she was always dating or screwing someone.  There was never any real emotion behind it.  She just liked the physical intimacy.  It was a way to avoid emotional intimacy, she supposed.  

After she began brokering treaties, it became clear that celibacy was the only option.  She tore after success and hungered for the feeling of being wrecked from a day at the negotiating table, having fought for what she believed in and, usually, winning.  The mental tiredness cleared her head of negative thoughts.  She could actually sleep at night, at least for the five to six hours allotted in her over-scheduled day.  Nothing beat the feeling of knowing that her work created tangible results.  She was rewarded for her efforts and quickly took on more complex and sensitive negotiations.  She found herself on private planes more than she was on the ground, and in foreign countries and hotel suites more than her own home.  Most of the time her internal clock had no idea if it was supposed to eat breakfast or pass out at two in the afternoon.  And it was all worth it.

Then Elizabeth met Simon.  

She had decided to take a semester off brokering and teach a class.  After ending up in the hospital for pneumonia and a yellow fever scare, her doctor had put a moratorium on travel for at least a month.  She was used to various travel-related illnesses, but lately they had admittedly affected her focus.  And she had so much knowledge to share, so many students she could inspire, that she decided to embrace her reduced schedule.

She found herself hyper-aware of her surroundings.  The possibility of choice returned to her life.  Before, her schedule was so compact, she couldn’t even think about what shirt to wear.  Now she had the time to make her own food, and to get coffee at a coffee shop instead of whatever free blend the hotel offered that morning.

The coffee shop was where she met Simon, when they both grabbed for the same creamer and their hands brushed against each other.

Elizabeth immediately bristled, realizing that she had just touched someone in a different manner than a diplomatic handshake in months.  She immediately pulled back and muttered a hasty, “Sorry,” but the way he smiled at her, warm and a bit mischievous, made her stop in her tracks.

The first time she kissed him, she was as hesitant as her high school self.  This time, it meant something.

She didn’t know how she got pulled into the relationship.  Like everything else in her life, it just happened.  This time, though, felt different.  She actually cared about Simon, and went out of her way to do nice things for him, and felt horrible when she hurt him.  She liked the fact that he was a doctor, and his main focus was helping others.  He encouraged her to go after what she wanted, even at his expense.

She found herself with a house and a dog, and soon came to the realization that everyone essentially considered her and Simon married.  They had never openly discussed it, although she sensed that Simon was tiptoeing around it because she had been so adamant she did not want to settle down.  Yet, undeniably, this was settling.  She still traveled all over the world, but her main job was being a professor.  

Still, without the formality, there was a certain freedom.

The loss of a partner hit her hard when she first set foot on Atlantis.  The dizzying balance of alien technology and sheer survival only distracted her for so long.  In the few hours a day she could crawl into a warm bed and listen to the ocean, knowing she would probably be alive in the morning, she thought about him.

She had come to rely on him for arranging home repairs, for cooking at least half the meals they ate together, and as the one person she could spill her emotions to without sacrificing her professional image.  Now she had an entire military subset defending her, but no one to lean on when she was emotionally drained.  

She resented the emptiness that grew inside her as she deliberately allowed herself to forget the contours of his face and how his hands felt as they held her at night.  She had not brought any pictures of him or any memorabilia, because it would hurt too much.  The lack of pain bothered her more.

Simon was simply gone.  She had let go, and flung herself far out into space without looking back.  Even when she wanted to cry, she was too overwhelmed to do so.  Her mind numbed to protect her from the unfathomable realization that she had hurt someone she loved to serve herself, and now that person was light years and galaxies away.  One step through the Stargate and an infinity of lifetimes she couldn’t look back on.

So she remembered a shadow.  She tried not to dig up memories that were too specific.  She didn’t want to remember the first time he whispered her name, so slowly, in her ear, causing shivers to run through her whole body.  She tried not to remember when she had practically jumped into his arms when she found out she would broker the Non-nuclear Proliferation Treaty and the smile on his face that was so genuine and encouraging when she told him.  She tried not to remember the first night in their house, when every box was unpacked and they stared out the window together, and it was raining, and with a contented sigh he said, “So this is our life now.”

And eventually, she did stop thinking about him.  But the rawness of not allowing herself to feel anything remained.

 

One day she threw her arms around John Sheppard and a lightning bolt split her in two.  She had acted on an impulse that suddenly sparked a tidal wave of emotions.  It wasn’t supposed to mean anything except that she was happy to see him alive.  But she thought about those thirty seconds for weeks.  The sexual desires she thought she had transcended like the Buddhist she wished to be trickled back between her bones until she could barely sleep at night.

Sometimes, she could be intent on work and then, out of nowhere, the thought of him pushed its way from the periphery of her mind to the forefront.  She didn’t want it.  She certainly didn’t have time for it.  Yet it called to her like a beacon in the dark.

Normally she would solve this crisis by having sex once and probably being over it by the time he orgasmed.  But she had never had a conflict of interest like this before.  Work was work and personal life was personal life.  The line between them did not exist here.

Besides the sexual desires, she was also developing those same feelings she had felt for Simon.  The fact that John had the ability to protect the entire city and much of the galaxy exacerbated these feelings.  He deserved love.  But did he want hers?  He seemed to like staring at the young Marines.  He had probably had several affairs.  And he, like her, had no time for a relationship.

Still, it seemed that once Elizabeth set a train of thought in motion, she was on it for the whole ride.

She found herself standing closer to him than she should have, grabbing his arm deliberately and playing it off like she was merely excited about something, and having private meetings with him when an e-mail would have sufficed.

Then he started flashing her these small looks, these barely perceptible smiles, a code that he knew she could decipher, that could only mean one thing.

He felt the same way about her.

They pretended to run into each other in the hallways even though they had memorized each other’s routines and knew exactly where the other one would be at any given time.

John went for a run at around eleven every night.

Elizabeth made herself a cup of tea at six each morning.

John drove golf balls and then grabbed a late lunch at three every Sunday.

Elizabeth stared at the Stargate after everyone else had gone to bed and meditated in the few minutes of peace the Gateroom experienced each day.

But they were never truly alone.

Until they were.

They had shot each other strange looks during dinner, right before they had been called to the SGC, and had playfully bickered on the Jumper when they set off to reclaim Atlantis.  No one else had noticed, too busy thinking about the Ancients and Replicators, but John and Elizabeth were hot on each other from the moment their eyes locked at that restaurant.

Elizabeth had spent most of the last several weeks back on Earth in denial.  She had rented an apartment near Cheyenne Mountain, because it was the closest apartment building she had come across.  It was nice, and had room for all the decor she had put in storage three years ago.  She hadn’t really looked at her bank account since she got to Atlantis, as cash had been irrelevant, and gaped at the seven figures just sitting in her low-interest savings account.  With money not an obstacle, she didn’t have to worry about finding a job for awhile...maybe something in another galaxy would come up again?  She couldn’t even laugh at herself.  She had food delivered to her apartment and wore the same three pairs of yoga pants.  She spent more time crying than she had collectively throughout her life.  She missed her dog more than anything.  She considered adopting a new pet, but hadn’t been outside in so long that she probably couldn’t commit to taking it on walks, and was there a pet food delivery service?

Carson finally pulled her out of her stupor.  She curled her hair and dug out her makeup.  Then she saw John.  His tongue flicked over his lips and he tilted his head down, but kept his eyes on her for a moment.  Elizabeth felt her cheeks reddening.

Atlantis was nearly bereft of people.  Elizabeth set up her office and hung her arms over her balcony, the familiar ocean lulling her into serenity.  At that moment, she almost,  almost , believed in a higher power.

John’s arm brushed against hers.

“This sunset is just…” Elizabeth breathed deeply.  “I’m home.  We’re home.”

“Yeah,” said John, placing a hand on her shoulder.  

She looked at his hand, but he didn’t take it away, or even look back at her.  He just stared at the ocean.  Elizabeth’s hand tingled as she slipped it around his waist.  He still didn’t move.

It felt...good, she supposed.  No.  It felt right.

Rodney was setting up his lab.  Carson was probably inventorying the infirmary.  General O’Neill and Woolsey were packing to leave.

Elizabeth was filled with warmth.  She closed her eyes and felt the last rays of the sun on her face.

She felt John’s nose behind her ear, trailing down her neck, and then on her chin.  He stayed there for a moment, waiting for her to turn her face toward his, and without opening her eyes, her lips sought his.

His lips were surprisingly soft.  Both his arms were on her waist now, and he stepped between her and the railing, pulling her against his torso.

_Oh, sweet, wonderful, lovely life._

She ran her hands through his hair and pushed close to him, their mouths slowly and deliberately ramming together and then apart for the few seconds they needed to gasp in the salty air before kissing again.  

As darkness descended over Atlantis, and the city lights striped John’s face, Elizabeth stepped back just enough to see the glinting water.  Then she began to laugh.  She laughed in staccato breaths, teasing short kisses over John’s lips, until he laughed too.  She had never heard him laugh like that, so carefree.  She had never laughed like that herself.  Her head emptied itself of all her worries.

They walked through the empty corridors, always touching each other the entire way to Elizabeth’s quarters.  They stretched out on her cool bed and smiled secret messages at each other.  

Hours later, as the sun came up, John brushed his foot against hers and rubbed her neck.  “Wakey wakey,” he whispered.

Elizabeth rolled over to look at him and sat up.  She couldn’t help gazing at his strong body, which she had explored so thoroughly the night before, barely believing what was happening.  She had finally given into her desire...and she wanted more.  But they both had work to do.

“You know this can never happen again,” Elizabeth said as John swung his jacket over his shoulders, looking cocky.  She had pulled on a t-shirt, still needing to shower, but John was now fully dressed and she couldn’t help staring at his clothed ass.

“We’ll see,” John said, waving at the door sensor.  “Bye, Elizabeth,” he smiled, stepping backwards out of her room.

“Good-bye, John,” she said back.

He touched her nose before turning down the corridor.

Elizabeth crumpled back onto her bed.  She had effectively just ended a relationship - well, a fling, with two years of build-up - and it hadn’t gone badly.  At all.  In fact, it was the best break-up she had ever experienced.

Now it was time to live again.


End file.
